Calendars

How to use the Time Away from Office Calendar

Goal: Communication with the team about where people are and when they are unavailable.

Key:

  • OOO/OFF: Out of Office (such as PTO, or Disability Leave)

  • Location name: eg. Saco

  • Vacation (Also OOO): Rest, recovery and rejuvenation!

TIP: + Google Calendar

You can subscribe or add a Google calendar to you list of calendars using +Google Calendar button in the lower right of the embedded calendar.

We use this calendar to communicate where we are to the team. Since we have many locations and may be spread out, its important to communicate our whereabouts so people know how to reach us or if they can not because we are out.

Think of this as an advanced (IN/OUT) office board.


Expectations for OOO Time Away from Office Communications

Goal: Improve our communication around absences so that each of us is better able to plan for and complete our work together.

  • Everyone must add their Out of Office (OOO) time in the IS Time Away From Office calendar.

    • Add time away from the office for any reason, (eg. sick, personal etc.). Beyond indicating OOO we do not need to add the reason to the calendar. We do, however, need to communicate the reason to our supervisor and ask for vacation/personal time in advance of taking it.

  • Because we are distributed and depend on each other to complete our work we need to not only communicate with our supervisors but also with the team when we plan to be out of office.

    • IMPORTANT: Send a brief message to the whole team <uma-is-staff-group@maine.edu> when you plan to be OOO for more than one hour between 7:00 am and 10:00 PM Monday through Friday and per your regularly scheduled hours. For example, the email might read, “I will be out of the office on DATE from TIME to TIME.” If the time away is one hour or less this step is not needed.

    • This message is sent as soon as you are aware of needing to be out and as much in advance of actually being out as possible. If you are planning to be out several weeks in advance, a reminder message may be needed.